How does Dual Identity work?

[Jester David]

Dual Identity is the signature bit of the vigilante. It's the first real thing that Jason Bulmahn talks about in the Know Direction interview. It's what makes the class necessary, otherwise a single scrying spell would reveal the character's identity.

But how does it actually work?
Not the mechanics. The why behind the mechanics.

It's not a supernatural ability, but it can automatically defeat a spell. How does that work? What's the in-world justification for the mechanic?

[Enlight_Bystand]

Perhaps it's a pschological thing - the vigilante believes stronly enough in the difference between the identities that as far as magic is concerned, they're different people?

[EvilPaladin]

Its because the vigilante isn't just someone who can put on a mask and fight crime, anyone can. The vigilante is someone who needs to fight crime without being discovered. As a result they learn to separate the part of their mind which fights and the part which doesn't. They don't simply pretend to be a masked hero, they become a masked hero. They spend time coming to terms with whatever moral codes they have to break for the greater good/evil. The side effects of such a mental shift include making them much, much better at mundane disguises than even masters of the craft, making them too complex to fit into a single alignment in the regular system, and making it so that even the most intricate, difficult, and expensive magic can't relate the two to eachother because they are effectively 2 different people.

[Jester David]

Enlight_Bystand wrote:

Perhaps it's a pschological thing - the vigilante believes stronly enough in the difference between the identities that as far as magic is concerned, they're different people?

So.... If you're scrying for someone and they have amnesia you won't find them either?